The present invention is related to a drawer locking apparatus, and more particularly to a drawer locking apparatus of a file cabinet or a tool cabinet.
A conventional file or tool cabinet is a substantially rectangular case body with six faces. The case body is formed by several panels defining a space therebetween. Several drawers are horizontally disposed in the space layer by layer for placing documents or tools therein. In order to prevent the documents or tools from being stolen or prevent the drawers from dropping out due to shock or inclination of the ground, the file or tool cabinet is equipped with a locking device for locking the drawers.
In order to lock the respective drawers at one time, a conventional device or such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,422 disclose a locking device including an up and down movable latch body disposed on the panels of the case body. Each drawer has a hook section corresponding to a latch hole or a latch section of the latch body. The latch body is drivingly connected with a link. One end of the link extends out of the case body to connect with a rotary mechanism such as a key unit. By means of turning the rotary mechanism, the link is driven to drive the latch body to reciprocally move. Accordingly, the hook section can be latched with the latch hole or latch section to lock the respective drawers at one time.
When locking the drawers, the drawers must be totally pushed into the case body so as to locate the hook section at a position where the hook section is latched with the latch hole or latch section. However, it often takes place that after locking the drawers, a user finds that one or some of the drawers are not totally pushed in and are not locked. Under such circumstance, the user must unlock the drawers and then totally push in the drawers and then again lock the drawers. This makes it inconvenient and troublesome to perform the locking operation for the drawers.
The above shortcomings have been overcome by U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,848 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,572,203. These Patents include a latch body upper end of which are formed with a slot having a predetermined length, a link having a bending section and a latch plate disposed on the drawer and having an inclined stop section. In the case that the latch body is positioned in a locking position for locking the drawers, while some drawers are not totally pushed in and locked, a user only needs to further force and push in the drawers. At this time, the latch body will ascend and then fall down to lock all the drawers.
In the structures of the above two U.S. Patents, the latch body is formed with several openings and each drawer is equipped with a latch plate. The cost for manufacturing time and labor and the cost for the material of such structure are relatively high.